A Good Old-Fashioned Future [Mass Market Paperback]

Bruce Sterling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

From the subversive to the antic, the uproarious to the disturbing, the stories of Bruce Sterling are restless, energy-filled journeys through a world running on empty--the visionary work of one of our most imaginative and insightful modern writers.

They live as strangers in strange lands. In worlds that have fallen--or should have. They wage battles in wars already lost and become heroes--and sometimes martyrs--in their last-ditch efforts to preserve the dignity and individuality of humanity.

A hack Indian filmmaker takes the pulse of a wounded and declining civilization--21st-century Britain. A pair of swashbuckling Silicon Valley entrepreneurs join forces to make a commercial killing--in organic underground slime and computer-generated jellyfish. A man in a Japanese city takes orders from a talking cat while pursuing a drama of danger and adventure that has become the very essence of his life.

From "The Littlest Jackal", a darkly hilarious thriller of mercs and gunrunners set in Finland, to a stark vision of a post-atomic netherworld in his haunting tale "Taklamakan", Bruce Sterling once again breaks boundaries, breaks icons, and breaks rules to unleash the most dangerously provocative and intelligent science fiction being written today.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A Good Old-fashioned Future is a paperback collection of seven short stories by former cyberpunk guru turned sociocultural prognosticator Bruce Sterling. Most of the works here come with impressive pedigrees, ranging from a Hugo Award for "Bicycle Repairman" to Hugo nominations for "Maneki Neko" and "Taklamakan." Another piece, "Big Jelly," was cowritten by Sterling's fellow cyberpunk alum, Rudy Rucker.

These stories have a lot in common. They all take place in the near future, and most are action-oriented, involving colorful characters such as secret agents, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Mafioso's, and revolutionaries. But they are also personal tales that tend to focus on individuals rather than ideas, which makes them hit home more often than standard SF fare. The best of the bunch is probably "Taklamakan," a high-concept piece about two freelance spies sent to a central Asian desert called Taklamakan, where the Asian Sphere is doing some sort of secret research into space flight. "Bicycle Repairman" is set in the same world, but instead of in an Asian desert it takes place in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the spies in this story aren't the good guys. It's a less successful piece than "Taklamakan" but also a good read.

Not all of the stories in this collection have the edgy, this-is-what-tomorrow-will-be-like quality that typifies Sterling's best work. But even when Sterling isn't at his best he's entertaining, and A Good Old-Fashioned Future is certainly that. --Craig E. Engler

Review

"Science fiction that makes the rest of near-future SF look toylike by comparison. It's as if Sterling is the only writer paying attention to what's happening in the real world."
—Locus

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Spectra (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553576429
• ISBN-13: 978-0553576429
• Product Dimensions: 4 x 0.5 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sterling's best collection so far, October 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Good Old-Fashioned Future (Mass Market Paperback)

With one or two exceptions, "A Good Old-Fashioned Future" exhibits the best Sterling short fiction I've read so far...the concluding three, beginning with "Deep Eddy," form a sort of quasi-novel that shows Sterling doing what he does best: providing widescreen views of _believable_ near-futures, peopled by sympathetic characters who find themselves in predicaments of sometimes overpowering weirdness in a world already steeped in the Philosophy of the Ejector Seat.

Arguably the best of the stories here is "Big Jelly," a fevered collaboration with Rudy Rucker, whose motto sums up Sterling's shared vision nicely: "Seek Ye The Gnarl!"

This is a spendid, lingering collection, more coherent and immediately enjoyable than "Crystal Express" or "Globalhead."

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Neat near-future stories, July 9, 1999

By 

Stefan Jones (Suburbs of Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Good Old-Fashioned Future (Mass Market Paperback)

Seven nice, fairly low-key stories set in near future worlds on the verge of becoming terribly strange . . . though not necessarily terrible. If there's a common theme here, it's that life will go on -- and may be a bit more fun -- if the corporate, social, and governmental status quo had some holes blown in it.

The best is "Maneki Neko," a genial story set in a Japan where the traditional gift economy has become fantastically enhanced. This one's up for a Hugo.

The weakest story is "The Littlest Jackal," another entry in the Siggy Starlitz sequence. Here the underground opportunist finds himself in the company of mercenaries trying to overthrow the local government and establish an off-shore banking haven. Not bad, but not up to the rest of the collection.

Strangest is a collaboration with Rudy Rucker about a Silicon Valley startup, synthetic jellyfish, and trouble in oil country.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A more even collection than "Globalhead", May 2, 2000

By 

Tung Yin (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Good Old-Fashioned Future (Mass Market Paperback)

As I discussed in my review of "Distraction," Bruce Sterling is a puzzling writer. At his best -- his non-fiction work, "The Hacker Crackdown" -- he is a fabulous, witty, fascinating writer. But his fiction, particularly his novels (I refer here to "Islands in the Net," "Holy Fire" and "Distraction," plus "Heavy Weather," which I started but never finished), tends to fall short of his aim.

His short stories tend to fare better. They are less ambitious but also tighter, and hence less distracting. "A Good Old-Fashioned Future" represents his latest collection of stories; the earlier works are "Globalhead" and "Crystal Express," which contains one absolute knock-out story called "Swarm."

These stories are less experimental than "Globalhead" and more successful. Most of them are set in the near future and focus on collapsing societies. The last three are set in the same world and form a loose novella; Sterling seems to like this setting.

None of the stories in here drags unacceptably, and some are quite good. It may be that Sterling has settled down to writing clean readable stories, rather than trying to write "outside the box."